How Much Will the Green New Deal Cost?

Climate change is the excuse; radically remaking the American economy is the aim.

Progressive firebrand Naomi Klein once declared that climate change has given the world "the most powerful argument against unfettered capitalism" ever. She added that progressive values and policies are "currently being vindicated, rather than refuted, by the laws of nature."

There's a lot to consider in this resolution, but let's for the time being focus on the goal of "meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources" by 2030. The resolution is light on fiscal details, so let's consider the question of how achieving this goal would cost.

As it happens, a team of Stanford engineers led by Mark Jacobson outlined just such a plan back in 2015. Jacobson's repowering plan would involve installing 335,000 onshore wind turbines; 154,000 offshore wind turbines; 75 million residential photovoltaic systems; 2.75 million commercial photovoltaic systems; 46,000 utility-scale photovoltaic facilities; 3,600 concentrated solar power facilities with onsite heat storage; and an extensive array of underground thermal storage facilities.

Assuming steep declines in the costs of each form of renewable electric power generation, just running the electrical grid using only renewable power would still cost roughly $7 trillion by 2030. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation calculated that the total cost of an earlier version of Jacobson's scheme would amount to $13 trillion. And based on how fast it has taken to install energy generation infrastructure in the past, Jacobson's repowering plan would require a sustained installation rate that is more than 14 times the U.S. average over the last 55 years and more than six times the peak rate.

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410 responses to “How Much Will the Green New Deal Cost?”

How is wind power working out? I know prices had fallen over the last couple of decades, but lately I’ve been reading suggestions that maintenance is getting more and more expensive, leading to many windmills being essentially mothballed.

Is there any truth to that? Is wind power competitive without subsidies? If not, how close is it to being competitive?

I know prices had fallen over the last couple of decades, but lately I’ve been reading suggestions that maintenance is getting more and more expensive, leading to many windmills being essentially mothballed.

I’ve also heard that the ceiling is a lot lower than previously estimated. That there’s a collective atmospheric stabilization, even warming, generated by farms beyond those modeled by a single windmill that prevents arbitrary expansion of existing farms without compromising other sites of potential farms nearby. I don’t have the exact numbers, but you can probably guess what my magic 8-ball says.

The progressive solution is to diminish the human population to point that the carbon footprint of man is zero. Eliminate Man (sorry for the gender insensitivity) and you eliminate the problem. In the words of the economic genius known as AOC “easy peasy”.

ever notice tony that they don’t put windmills behind other windmills they need a distance separation since the first one disturbes the directional flow. But then you are a man of science and know that already right?

Tony obviously is an idiot. His ability to debate begins and ends with him making an unsupported statement that is ideologically based but not necessarily (I would state rarely) supported by a basic understanding of logic, science or mathematics. Using directional drilling, modern Petroleum and NG production has an extremely small footprint. However, Tony would probably argue that without even understanding what directional drilling is or how it allows a single pad to access multiple deposits many miles apart.

Tony, this is talking about affecting the overall energy balance of the atmosphere.

The windmills take energy out of the atmosphere and store it as electrical potential energy. At a large enough scale of windmill deployment, it’s possible that this could cause unintended consequences,such as affecting weather and temperature. The effects could be local or global.

Now, John is not correct that this is a perpetual motion machine. That’s because the system is not closed and massive amounts of energy is flowing in from the sun.

At a large enough scale of windmill deployment, it’s possible that this could cause unintended consequences,such as affecting weather and temperature. The effects could be local or global.

Slight correction. It always causes unintended consequences the question is if the local ones up-translate to a global scale or effect. In this situation, it appears to be the case that previously unknown local phenomenon up-translates and make wind, at best, a fractional solution to the problem.

“At a large enough scale of windmill deployment, it’s possible that this could cause unintended consequences,such as affecting weather and temperature. ”

Theoretically possible, but it would have to be a usage higher than the US would ever need. You could have some limited effects on the local climate, just like building a city full of sky scrapers has a limited effect.

Theoretically possible, but it would have to be a usage higher than the US would ever need.

Incorrect to unknown.

The best estimates suggest that theirs 9X the amount of wind in the plains than we currently need. But those estimates don’t take into account the phenomenon we’re discussing and pretty flatly just describe the potential without any regard for our ability to attain or control it. To get to the 9X number, you’d almost certainly have to effectively build cities to support power generation.

For someone claiming that others are “unaware of how wind works”, Tony’s ignorance is astonishing.

Here’s a clue, Tony. If you put up windmill A, it pulls energy X out of the atmosphere and converts it to electricity. In doing so, it acts as a partial windbreak. That means there is less energy available for windmill B which is downwind of A. Continue to industrial-scale windfarms and 1) windmill Z can no longer generate enough electricity to be cost-effective and 2) the ecological effects of removing all that energy from the atmosphere will have dramatic and severe unintended consequences on the downstream climate. It will affect temperatures (generally causing them to increase), precipitation patterns, flooding, erosion, etc.

If you truly care about the ecology, an industrial-scale windmill farm is about the worst imaginable use of the land.

True, but not for the reason you cite. A windmill takes a very, very tiny fraction of the energy out of the air. No chance of changing the energy content in any meaningful way.

But windmills kill thousands of birds, and take up a large area of land. Maintenance costs may be a problem as well.

Intermittent energy production is the biggest flaw. Wind sometimes doesn’t blow for a week or more. So you need a very large storage facility or a full backup system that can be engaged as needed. Very costly.

At scale, BigT, that is not true. Windmills take enough energy out of the air that even at current scales, wind farm engineers have to account for it in their designs. And even at current scales of windfarms – scales that are far, far below the sizes needed for Tony’s utopia – the downstream effects on local climate were measurable.

35% energy extraction is not uncommon. 35% is not handwave territory BigT… It’s very significant.

The reason it’s not an issue yet i(and likely never will be) is because there are almost no places in the world where wind energy is economically feasible. The reality is that the amount of energy carried in a parcel of air under conditions people normally live (or you would want to build a turbine in) is very, very, very small, and to extract it feasibly your turbine needs to cover a giant area… And bigger turbines generate higher forces which means heavier materials (and reduced efficiency) or more expensive materials (meaning more expensive).

All this to chase tiny amounts of energy.

Did I mention that most of the places where it will work are far away from where the energy is actually needed….

No one ever went “this new coal thing can heat my house but what is it doing to the environment”… They went ” oh good, this new coal thing is realitvely inexpensive and keeps me from freezing to death overnight without having to tend the fire every hour”

“That there’s a collective atmospheric stabilization, even warming, generated by farms beyond those modeled by a single windmill that prevents arbitrary expansion of existing farms without compromising other sites of potential farms nearby”

Before CapeWind was killed, there were some pretty distressing images of what it would have done to the downwind weather, although I believe the prediction went the other way: cooling from energy removed causing even more fog that we currently endure. Thermodynamics always wins!

Before CapeWind was killed, there were some pretty distressing images of what it would have done to the downwind weather, although I believe the prediction went the other way: cooling from energy removed causing even more fog that we currently endure.

The actual outcome varies from farm to farm, the underlying and more important, if only argumentatively, trend is that even more than overall climate, the wind farming system/environment is significantly less stable and/or more able to be affected by man.

If you believe mankind is doing bad things to the planet. We would have to work ridiculously hard and, in the process, absolutely annihilate the jet stream and achieve very little wrt to AGW by the very same premises and modelling that dictate the future of AGW.

Deductions can very easily be a subsidy. Debt capital is subsidized relative to equity capital – and interest payments are deductible where dividend payments are not. That means companies can be encouraged purely by the tax code to leverage themselves up beyond what they would do if neither debt nor equity was advantaged (relative to the other – or to other factors of production).

I can understand, philosophically, resisting the idea that tax breaks are subsidies – because acknowledging that they are subsidies would imply that the government is “owed” the taxes, and by not getting them, they are “giving up” the taxes they are “owed” to the business. So, philosophically, yeah we could argue that tax breaks are not subsidies.

That being out of the way, piratically speaking, most businesses view tax breaks as subsidies. My job is to finance the building of new power production facilities such as natural gas generation and transmission facilities, coal fire plants, solar farms, wind farms and nuclear reactors, etc. including distribution networks.

When we discuss new solar and wind farms with prospective clients, we do a lot of analysis on subsidies and one of the most crucial parts of that is tax breaks, how long they are expected to continue, and how much of an impact that will have on the company’s cash flow and ability to service its debt. The costs of our financing to help fund renewable projects can also help reduce the tax burden on our clients. This has helped a lot of our clients, many of whom produce 70%+ of their energy using oil, coal and natrual gas, have a $0 tax bill at the end of the year.

We can say its not a subsidy in the philosophical/theoretical sense, but these special temporary tax breaks work a lot like a subsidy, they just don’t go through the extra steps of “government takes your money and gives it back to you.”

“I can understand, philosophically, resisting the idea that tax breaks are subsidies – because acknowledging that they are subsidies would imply that the government is “owed” the taxes, and by not getting them, they are “giving up” the taxes they are “owed” to the business. So, philosophically, yeah we could argue that tax breaks are not subsidies.”

Can we please dispense once-and-for-all with the idea that a deduction for interest expense is a subsidy relative to the non-deductibility of capital payments? They are apples and pears. Businesses pay income tax on profit: what’s left over for owners after all expenses are accounted for. Interest payments clearly reduce what’s left for owners. Why shouldn’t they be deductible? Payments to capital holders are entirely different. They are made AFTER profit is determined and are transfers between the company and its owners. The receipt of dividends can be an income event to owners (they might simply be a return of capital but you don’t know until the owner has completely sold/relinquished all ownership rights, although we tax them as income when received), but they are not an income event to the company. If I invest $100 as an owner and then the company returns my $100 in the form of a dividend that relinquishes my ownership stake, I clearly have no net income. And how much “expense” has the company incurred such that the remaining owners have less profit earned? Zero. It’s not an income event. Therefore it’s not deductible.

It’s interesting how you always bow out of a conversation once people with substantive knowledge of a subject begin to converse. It’s almost as if you do realize you possess the intellect of a used dildo. But keep squawking tiresome clich?s that fit nicely on a college kid’s protest sign, you maladjusted retard.

No new energy stream or capital investment is competitive without subsidies – mostly because most capital in the US is deployed into residential housing which is heavily subsidized and the capital deployed into energy over the last decade (shale) because of the free Fed money subsidy is the next financial crisis-in-waiting. Capital costs of everything in this country are one giant clusterf#$%. And for wind, that is a very high portion of the costs.

In most parts of the country, wind can never be more than a backup/peripheral source – and transmission capacity is always a wasted cost. On the plains, the wind potential is 9x the current electricity use of the US and is currently very competitive (10-30% of energy currently from wind in those states). Maintenance per se is not the issue. The issue is that transmission capacity is fixed and low – so wind turbines need to be taken off/on line too much and that produces stop/start wear.

But we will never allow energy-intensive industry to move there – cuz that would mean people would need to move there – and that would mean power in Congress would shift (and AOC would quickly find herself out of a elected job if House stays fixed in size).

On the plains, the wind potential is 9x the current electricity use of the US and is currently very competitive (10-30% of energy currently from wind in those states).

This claim was made in 2010 and doesn’t take into account the vertical mixing components that have since been discovered and more fully fleshed out. Of course, it’s a bit of a made up number anyway as the potential can be arbitrarily high if you just ignore transmission and maintenance inefficiencies.

for the plains, the transmission/mtce stuff isn’t an ‘inefficiency’. It is more an issue of will the plains be viewed more as a colony of the rest of the US or will the energy there actually be viewed as a comparative advantage of the plains.

Really? Because we watched as people on the east coast declared Armageddon was coming when temperatures dropped into the teens. At the same time we weren’t topping zero. So explain comparitive advantage of the plains again?

You mean the place where the wind blows all the time so trees can’t grow? Or do you mean the place where if the topsoil starts blowing away you may as well become an Okie and head elsewhere cuz it won’t stop blowing for a decade? Or maybe it’s the place that no one knows about except in movies with tornadoes?

Hell I can’t even imagine what their comparative advantage is cuz – well – everyone knows wind ain’t worth anything. May as well get the hell out of here and move to a place that has less wind.

“You mean the place where the wind blows all the time so trees can’t grow?”

Displaying an overly simplistic understanding of grasslands does not engender respect for the rest of your argument.

Consider that, on the American plains there are places that trees do reliably grow. That those places also tend to have higher soil moisture levels just might be a significant factor. That those same places are also less susceptible to wildfire being another.

Golly. And here I was thinking that an implied reference to Grapes of Wrath and the Wizard of Oz would ensure my comment was treated as scientific.

The trees is actually a reference to the first real attempts to homestead/settle the area. From the Timber Culture Act of 1873 to the Great Locust Swarm of 1875 to the Great Plains Shelterbelt/Windbreak to Soil Conservation Service. Along with an internal joke in my family (which descends from some of those first homesteaders and which I assumed might be familiar to someone else from that area) – If I could farm wind or locusts instead of trees, I’d be a rich man.

Wind was why the region wasn’t settled. Why it was then bypassed by all infrastructure to keep it depopulated. And now that depopulation is used to prove that the wind doesn’t even really exist cuz there’s nobody there.

That’s what wind is CURRENTLY providing in those states. There are no 9 month blackouts. And there is plenty of potential to ramp that up by magnitudes with a local renewable source of energy.

What there isn’t is any interest elsewhere in the country in letting that area increase in population or industry or connecting it to infrastructure. Because we no longer even think of infrastructure in terms of geography – only in terms of existing population.

Hence the obliviousness of some comment about some need for ‘storage’. You are somewhere else – and take that as a given – and expect the energy to be brought to you. And likewise the perceived need to add extra costs to wind by creating ultra-long-distance transmission. That isn’t a cost of wind. That is a cost of people’s immobility.

eg Iowa, Kansas and South Dakota are currently over 30% of electricity from wind.

Propaganda at its finest. They are part of the Southwest Power Pool which covers 14 states as well as being part of the NE grid. You can’t separate them out by state because state borders are have nothing to do with how the power is transmitted.

Wind is where it is. It is geographically specific. That is a weakness – and it can be a strength. Forcing us to measure wind energy by how well/efficiently we humans can move the wind to somewhere else – while putting the entire cost for that on wind – is nothing but an attempt to force NEW capital investments to create rentier profits for OLD capital investments.

At core, your argument is based on the assumption that the mixing of different energy sources/consumption – the grid system – is THE lens through which all new energy sources/investment must be judged. If it supports the grid system, then it is wonderful. If it doesn’t, then it can’t be allowed to exist.

At core, your argument is based on the assumption that the mixing of different energy sources/consumption – the grid system – is THE lens through which all new energy sources/investment must be judged.

I explained in my first comment In most parts of the country, wind can never be more than a backup/peripheral source – and transmission capacity is always a wasted cost.

You are simply assuming that wind can ONLY be judged by how effective it is as an energy source in those other parts of the country – after it has gone into the grid/transmission – and cannot even comprehend raw data that falls outside the assumption you’ve made.

I see no need to explain my first comment further. You clearly can’t comprehend what it means.

If I were to build a coal plant in WY – it would not be economic cuz of transmission. An oil plant in the Bakken of ND – uneconomic cuz of transmission. A ngas plant in NW Kansas – uneconomic cuz of transmission.

So are coal and oil and ngas also uneconomic sources of electricity? Of course not. The only insight of those statements is that EVERYTHING built in the plains now is uneconomic. Not even WIND turbine mfr/servicing can be built there. Because it has been depopulated and will remain depopulated for as long as it is disconnected from infrastructure. eg can’t even get from KS to NB via interstate – so no industry that might have some internal supply/delivery chain in that region will ever develop. No possible employment – no people. The entire region has been designed as a commodity colony.

My you are dumb. The Southwest Energy Pool is a electrical grid operator. The Southwest Energy Pool region has 230/345 kV lines running all the way from North Dakota to New Mexico and Louisiana and includes 14 states.

Infrastructure developed as needed. According to you as I understand it if we build them they will come.

FAIL to build it and you ensure it remains depopulated. Look at an interstate highway map. It linked EXISTING cities – but also ensured all future development/growth would occur around the hubs that are well-connected. Vast stretches west of the Miss River can only ever be empty because they are nothing more than an off-ramp and truck stop to hubs that are hundreds of miles away. We fossilized ourselves into what we were in the 1950’s – and now interstate spending is allocated mostly to enable suburban commuters NOT interstate commerce.

I hate to agree with JFree, as he is often wrong… But in a way he is correct here.

The truth is many, if not most, major cities (or populous regions) sprung up where they did because of natural advantages in some resource. That could be coal, or oil, or trees, or iron ore, or good crop land, etc. People followed the resource, which is to say people followed the job that was there because of the resource.

They then have often been able to essentially sustain a self reinforcing cycle that kept them big and important, even if they lose their initial founding industry. Some fail from time to time (Detroit), but many keep chugging (NYC).

His point is that we HAVE a very important resource available in an area that isn’t very densely populated, but it might make sense to develop more industry there, and have more people there. I surely wouldn’t advocate moving people there at gun point… But if there is cheap energy to be had, it may happen on its own over time. The NW has cheap hydro electricity which has been a boon to certain industries here, including now server farms. Midwest could see the same possibly.

As long as democratic socialists like AOC agree with us Koch / Reason libertarians on #AbolishICE, we shouldn’t argue with them about relatively minor issues. Green New Deal, Medicare for All, $25 / hour minimum wage, raising taxes on billionaires ? honestly I’m either ambivalent or opposed to these proposals. But until Drumpf is removed from office and the alt-right white nationalists are totally defeated, we can’t risk fracturing the progressive / libertarian alliance for open borders.

You don’t get it.. there is nothing Libertarian about Socialists (regardless of name they put in front ) Your alliance with with progressives is unholy at best. It is why most modern Libertarians that advocate for open borders and a welfare state are nitwits. The Green Deal ($35 +++Trillions & tens of millions of jobs lost), Medicare for all ($35 Trillion), $25 min wage are not minor issues again you can’t be Libertarian and agree to these extremely destructive policies. Raising taxes on Billionaires? Silly pandering that only a progressive would buy into. As much as I dislike Trump’s style I can’t see where he has been even remotely as bad as Bush or Obama. Alt Right White Nationalists? Please spare me they number less than 1 half of 1% of the US population if that much and have the impact of ear wax on the policies of the White House.

And Ron, you are right, the cost of the Green New Deal would be enormous, and not just in dollar amounts.

HOWEVER, Mick Mulvaney is right – “nobody cares” about deficits or the debt. So unfortunately, just arguing “OMG look at the price tag” is not going to be persuasive enough. It OUGHT to be, but it isn’t.

Furthermore, just labeling it as “socialism” probably isn’t going to work either, because people don’t seem to be as opposed to “socialism” as they should be when that term is so broadly and loosely defined, as is common nowadays.

So I’m actually pessimistic about actually stopping the Green New Deal, or something like it, in the intermediate term. I think we are likely to see some variant of it within the next 2-6 years.

It is not about cost. It is about the fact that it won’t work. And the public is not going to tolerate the lights going out. We are not going to get a Green New Deal and even if we did, it would result in a bunch of money being spent on systems that don’t work and thus do not replace the system we have now.

You really can’t overstate how stupid this whole thing is. It is literally tearing down the infurstructure that allows our civilization to exist as we know it. I do not think we are going back to living in caves. So, the only question is how much damage do the people who want us to return to the privitive do before the public feels it enough to put a stop to it.

I’ve read actual scholars arguing that humanity’s transition away from being a hunterer-gatherer society into an agricultural based society was a horrible thing. Nevermind that it allowed stability that created specialization and eventually civilization, in essence allowing life expectancy to increase from about 30 to about 80 (or more).

The reason why reason has a 1500 character limit on posts and registration is because a few years ago it was infested with a troll who used the handle “White Indian”. The troll act was to claim that the agricultural revolution and the ending of the hunter gatherer society was the cause of starvation. No kidding. And there are appearently people out there who actually believe this. They think that agriculture is a scam created to cause starvation and that even our current population could be healthy and happy if it would only go back to a hunter gatherer state.

It is scary enough to know that there are people like Tony out there. It is even scarier to think that he isn’t the dumbest one there is.

That notion that agriculture and civilization were bad ideas goes back to Rousseau. There have been scholars enamored with it ever since. The thing is, if being a hunter gatherer is such a great life and agriculture such drudgery, how did it did it develop at all? I have seen some suggest that it was imposed by sinister men, but no explanation of why they would be listened to.

Well, I think the trick is people started doing it because we could appreciate the practical advantages of growing crops… But then still thought “Digging in the dirt is fucking annoying, I wish I was out stalking a deer right now!”

Which is why people STILL are largely drawn to things like this. Wandering about in the woods (hiking), sleeping under the stars next to a fire (camping), hunting (hunting, duh!), and so on.

Studies show people who live in large cities have a shit ton of psychological problems that people who live in less dense areas don’t have. We ARE NOT wired for this modern world. But we see the practical benefit, so most suffer through it. Alternatively many people will out loud say “Oh hell no, I’d never live in a big city.” I myself feel comfortable in a suburban or rural environment, but would shoot myself before living in an apartment. Literally. Compromise is I live in a suburbany ‘hood in a city.

But just because we put up with shit doesn’t mean it’s the best for our headspace, ya know?

Yeah Tony., That is it. Its everyone else who is stupid not geniuses like you who think that cheap electric power from the wind and the sun would magically be available if only the government would give it to us.

You are ignorant and easily lead but you do make up for it being hateful and immoral. So you have that going for you.

Yeah, that is right. Oil just enables modern civilization to exist. Only a partisan hack would defend that.

Tony broadcasts his hatred of oil and the evil fossile fuels using a computer powered by coal and a house warmed by natural gas. You really would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at you Tony.

Tony has the red butt because for the first time in 50 years we are energy independent and are actual a player in the Energy export markets. All despite the despicable Obama attempts at turning this country into a third world crap hole. Nothing pisses off a Socialists than seeing capitalism flourish.

Modern society is energy dependent. Increasing wealth is largely matter of lowering the cost of energy. We might be tempted to worry that decreased energy costs would lead to problems of scarcity in raw materials, but the last few decades have shown pretty much the opposite – that with rising wealth there is decreased scarcity of raw materials.

The Tonys long for a world where the primary sources of energy are government controlled because they recognize it is the only way they can successfully dictate everything else.

I get it. But we have no choice but to find some alternative way of doing things, because we are killing the biosphere of planet earth (that’s where we live). The longer we wait, the more painful it will be. And the bigger the government intervention. The whole point of the metaphor of putting your head in the sand is that it doesn’t actually make the predator that’s chasing you go away.

No we are not killing the biosphere. Only an idiot like you could think a warmer planet is les conducive to life. I mean there is so much more life in the polar regions of the earth and so little of it in the tropics.

You just mouth whatever talking point you are told. What a sad stupid way to go through life.

“Human activity, the consumption of fossil fuels, the acidification of the oceans, pollution, deforestation, and forced migrations threaten life forms of all kinds. It is estimated that one-third of corals, freshwater molluscs, sharks, and rays, one-fourth of all mammals, one-fifth of all reptiles, and one-sixth of all birds are heading towards extinction.” ?Elizabeth Kolbert

Your source is woefully incorrect, joyous though she may be in her misrepresentations. 100% of all existing species are doomed to extinction. Regardless of what we do or fail to do. The vast majority of species that have lived on this planet are extinct. Sources; Darwin Einstein Hawking Dawkins Etc.

It also ignores the changes in climate over thousands of years and the cycles of weather changes. Changes in climate happen and as much as progressives try to blame man there are a host of reasons for the changes that cannot be ignored including Tony’s flatulence.

The only reason you’re defending oil is because your tribe mindlessly defends oil because other people get rich off it, most of them not even Americans.

Now that’s pretty funny. Socialists hate oil because people get rich from it, and that’s not fair not fair waaah not fair.

So the only possible reason someone would have to not hate oil is because they want people to get rich. Not because it’s a great store of energy, not because of plastics and other amazing products we get from it, not because exhaust from cars is better than roads covered in animal shit and buzzing with flies.

Every horseshit anti-science talking point in your head was paid for by an oil lobbyist. You are a pathetic asshole sheep. And the oil companies aren’t even bothering to defend denialism anymore. You’re a pathetic asshole sheep who’s 15 years behind the fucking lobbyists who shat their nonsense into your brain in the first place.

Every horseshit anti-science talking point in your head was paid for by an oil lobbyist. You are a pathetic asshole sheep. And the oil companies aren’t even bothering to defend denialism anymore. You’re a pathetic asshole sheep who’s 15 years behind the fucking lobbyists who shat their nonsense into your brain in the first place.

Yeah Tony that really disproves the point that oil powers our entire civilization.

So the only possible reason someone would have to not hate oil is because they want people to get rich. Not because it’s a great store of energy, not because of plastics and other amazing products we get from it, not because exhaust from cars is better than roads covered in animal shit and buzzing with flies.

The same people who cheered banning handsome cabs from New York because it was cruel to the horses think cars are the most monsterous invention ever!! You can’t make up this kind of stupid.

Most of them not Americans? First America is the largest Petroleum producer in the world now. Second, a good portion of Petroleum development in Africa, Asia, Africa, Central America etc is by American Corporations. Tony do you ever even bother doing simple research before spouting off?

Sorry but coal has too many downsides for its future use. Today about 30% of the US electricity is coal generated (US EIA). That percentage is unlikely to increase. In addition to the carbon emitted, coal as has a number of toxics trace metals like mercury that are emitted. Radioactive trace elements emitted from coal burning exceed emissions from nuclear plants. There is also the issue of the disposal if coal fly ash. The Trump administration wants to relax MAT standards to make coal more attractive, but those standards will be reapplied in the future. Utilities do not want to take on the burden of coal and its associated cost. No new plants will be developed. It simple economics.

It includes high speed rail across the oceans because it wants to eliminated air travel why i don’t know its far more efficient than rail travel so it must be a method of controlling travel not reducing environmental impacts

It is a metaphysical certainty that the GND isn’t going to accomplish any of its ostensible objectives.

However, it would squander trillions of dollars, which would enrich the politically connected and impoverish the middle class.

If the politicians really believe that AGW is going to destroy the planet, they’d start off by advocating a few modest proposals, such as 1) moratorium on all fossil fuel production on Federal lands; 2) a combination of fuel and carbon taxes sufficient to raise motor fuel prices to European levels, about $8/gallon, and electricity price to German levels, about $0.40/kWh; 3) a ban on all private jet travel and an additional 100% tax on commercial air travel; 4) a 50% excise tax on meat and other animal products; and, 5) cut Medicare spending by 25% to accelerate the die off of geezers.

These are nowhere near sufficient to achieve the GND objective of zero net carbon, but they would demonstrate that the politicians are serious enough about AGW to risk their political careers. My prediction is that their political careers would be over because American voters do not think they will have to accept a radical diminution in their lifestyle and consumption patterns.

Then ad in a carbon tax which they all preach. It will raise the cost of everything, by how much depends on how high the tax is. The greentards here in MT always preach tourism (and it is huge here) yet fail to understand that raising energy taxes will price the average asshole out of being able to come here and spend money. Which is precisely what assholes like McKibben of 350 want, to make it so expensive that the plebes can’t afford to do anything that causes GHG emissions.

The fly in the ointment will be the massive land use footprint from bird choppers and the hi voltage power lines that would be needed that would destroy the wide open spaces greenies profess to love. Plus people hate living around them. Wind is going to die in the next 10 years when people realize these things.

The fact is that none of the options for electrical generation can be made without using natural deposits of chemically stored solar energy to make them, and only those options that use chemically stored solar or nuclear energy are capable of producing enough energy to build their replacements.

As the aging fleet of modern generating stations dies off, so does the ability to continue making new unreliable power supplies, so meeting demand will get more expensive and unreliable as supplies continue to fail.

No one here, as far as I can tell, is advocating any kind of force but you. You want to remake the economy and the government and impose it on anyone who does not agree with your feckless notions. The average libertarian wants to be left alone to enjoy their liberty and solve their own problems except where the role of the government is absolutely necessary and justifiable; they believe that free markets will do a far better job of addressing needs and than any form of central planning.

Tony just because you sit on your ass and do nothing but pollute the world doesn’t mean everyone does. Most people are out doing useful things earning their living. Fuck you and everyone else who wants to stop them.

I’ve come to the conclusion he’s a troll to generate clicks. Every time you reply to him the page refreshes, and in a couple minutes you’ll have another progressive mouth breather response from Tony awaiting that is basically begging for a retort.

The same greenies who push this green scam are the same who promise everyone will have a remunerative job, affordable housing and guaranteed food supply, as if reducing carbon emissions and the other things are all compatible with each other.

A lot of sunlight energy is available. What is the efficiency limit on collecting and converting it to electricity? As I recall, it’s pretty low because the light comprises a wide range of wavelengths, and you can only tune the cells to collect a very narrow range.

Actually, Carter was pushing Solar heavily (and heavily investing in it in the 70s (that’s 40 years). The US military was researching since at least the second world war as a way to power remote bases. That is almost 80 years. Battery technology is millennial old and modern batteries two centuries old.

There are a lot of caveats. What about shade? Trees? Weather? Shorter days in the winter? There’s a big difference between, say, a house in the California desert covered with solar panels, and say a house in Washington’s temperate rain forest covered with solar panels. It won’t work everywhere or for everyone.

Then there is also efficiency. I don’t know the answer and I don’t care enough to look it up, but those panels don’t convert 100% of the sunlight into energy. So the numbers are misleading.

There are a lot of caveats. What about shade? Trees? Weather? Shorter days in the winter? There’s a big difference between, say, a house in the California desert covered with solar panels, and say a house in Washington’s temperate rain forest covered with solar panels. It won’t work everywhere or for everyone.

Then there is also efficiency. I don’t know the answer and I don’t care enough to look it up, but those panels don’t convert 100% of the sunlight into energy. So the numbers are misleading.

The idea of talking about the total energy flux is to provide an absolute upper limit on what can be used given 100% efficiency. Then you can easily get a more realistic number by stacking up the various inefficiencies.

I think similar things are done when trying to calculate the total energy available in the ground from untapped fossil fuels.

Precious metals are required for some solar panels. Precious metals are also used in cell phones and millions of other applications.

As solar tech got better over time, its not unreasonable to expect the solar panels to be more recyclable or easier to extend the life.

I’m not an environmentalist so I don’t really care about carbon footprint or whatever. I care about saving thousands of dollars over a decade and being energy independent of a bloated, inefficient, and government controlled US electricity grid.

Almost every single family home with a south facing roof has enough roof area to collect solar energy to collect multiple days worth of electricity needs (including heating and cooling).

The big problem is storing it. Storing enough for a single overnight is not terribly expensive. Problem is if you want to replace grid power, you need to have storage for several days in case of extended periods of rain or cloudiness, or you need some other backup generation method.

And all that is grossly inefficent compared to a large power plant. And thos panels are not made of unicorn farts. They contian all kinds of rare earths and materials tha likely are not ubundant enough to put solar panels on every roof.

Christ, this stupidity again. No, nukes are not the most thermally efficient. That would be CCGT’s at about 60%. Solar and wind? Well, your precious solar is about 10% efficient (assuming fresh panels– they don’t age well). Wind, well, let’s just say that any power generation technology measured in W/m^2 (yes, just Watts, not kW), is barely better than a campfire.

And that grid is the only thing that makes your precious solar even work. Whenever you get in trouble you and your fellow rent-seekers come running back to the grid and expecting the lights to come on. Distributed power is a joke until Mr. Fusion comes along (or more realistically home SOFC plumbed into the NatGas infrastructure).

Solar is NOT limited to 10% efficiency. Even if it were only 10%, that produces plenty of electricity.

The reason some people hate solar is because once the panels are built and installed they receive infinite and free solar energy to produce electricity.

Additional costs include maintenance and life of the panels. Maintenance is very cheap and can be done mostly by home owners. Solar panel costs to construct will just get better as will the life of panels.

Unfortunately for your little inaccurate theory, many of us solar electricity producers are net exporters of electricity into a power grid.

A lot of ranchers are putting in solar powered pumps for remote water tanks. To get loans and assistance, they have to have at least three days storage. Batteries are the least safe choice for storage, it is recommended to store water. This is because batteries are so unreliable.

Yeah, a *big* battery storage power station is on the order of 100 MWh of electricity while an *average* pump storage hydroelectric station is on the order of 1000 MWh. Total capacity of PSH outstrips battery storage, but battery storage has the advantage of being deployable practically anywhere.

Not quite true. The latest estimates are that you could meet the US’s current energy needs with a solar farm roughly the size of Arizona. You’d have to put it about there, too. Solar efficiency everywhere else drops sharply due to the incidence of non-sunny days.

Of course, in doing so, you’d trash the ecology of all the land under the solar farm, create massive unintended consequences to the downwind climate, require insanely huge devastation to get the needed amounts of heavy metals and still trash the environment everywhere else because of the repeaters and power converters necessary to move that much electricity from the southwest US to where people actually live.

Decentralized power generation (rooftops, etc) avoids the distribution cost damages and might lower the downwind climate impacts to negligible levels but increases all the other costs.

“If Renewables Are So Great for the Environment, Why Do They Keep Destroying It?” […] “New offshore wind turbines in Germany could “lead to the extinction of individual species” including the rare, intelligent, and highly-threatened harbor porpoise, according to Friends of the Earth-Germany (BUND).

Migratory bat populations, including the hoary bat, could could go extinct, say scientists, if the expansion of wind energy in North America continues.

A single California solar farm, Ivanpah, required the killing of hundreds of desert tortoises, the state’s threatened reptile, and annually kills six thousand birds by lighting them on fire.

I used to snark that Leftists seek to create Utopia via government coercion. After reading the text of AOC’s resolution, it’s plain that it’s no joke: they really do believe they can create the Socialist Worker’s Utopia.

Christiana Figueres, the commissar of the UNFCCC, the sponsor of the IPCC, has pretty much said the same:

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.” Referring to the Paris COP agreement, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”

What “economic development model” has reigned for the couple of centuries since the Industrial Revolution?

It’s a rhetorical question with an obvious answer for most of you. But I have to supply the answer for Tony: CAPITALISM.

by the IPCC’s OWN REPORT, the most extreme outcomes of global warming by 2100 will be little more than a mild inconvenience to the world’s economy. I really don’t understand where all the panic is coming from… oh way they just want power. Carry on.

AOC’s concern about the environment and sustainability is reasonable. Her solution is idiotic. You can’t legislate technology, and energy is a technology problem.

Back before fossil fuel, whales were hunted to the brink of extinction for their oil. It wasn’t activists or politicians or legislators who saved them. It was the discovery of fossil fuel. Once we had fossil fuel, the only people who wanted to kill whales were the Eskimos and the Japanese, who eat them.

Fossil fuel will fade once we have better energy technology. It was the private sector that created the boom in fossil fuels, and it’s the private sector that spearheaded the electric car industry, solar, wind, maglev, and every other alternative technology. The best-case is for AOC is that her ill-conceived laws will have zero effect. The worst case is that it will damage the free market’s ability to generate new solutions.

That was mostly my point. Rather than being a model of success in technological innovation and development the MIC is a paragon of waste and inefficiency.

All of the “accomplishments” of the MIC are in areas of mass destruction rather than any kind of useful creativity. Mass destruction has its place in the grand scheme, I suppose, but not one that we should be promoting as useful for human existence in general

I can’t remember who said it but the statement “scratch a communist and you will find a feudalist” seems apropos here.

“Fossil fuel will fade once we have better energy technology. It was the private sector that created the boom in fossil fuels, and it’s the private sector that spearheaded the electric car industry, solar, wind, maglev, and every other alternative technology. ”

You’re leaving out the part when governments heavily subsidized electric cars, solar, wind, etc. to get them to the point where they are *mostly* affordable. The government still is subsidizing these industries today, but it won’t have to for very much longer. They are nearly economically viable – just not for large-scale power generation and transmission.

That’s where your point about technology comes in – we need battery tech to really make solar/wind something workable. And without nuclear, there really isn’t a feasible way to get away from fossil fuels in the intermediate term.

Where is the money to pay for this massive transformation going to come from? The headline over at The Week sums it up pretty well: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to pay for her Green New Deal by essentially printing more money.”

According to some halfwit on a TEDTalk, we could feed the world by printing money. Logic: Look how rich Americans are and we got that way by printing money, so if we just print enough for everyone in the world…

Government is God. Big Oil is Satan. Al Gore is Jesus. And the end is nigh unless we follow the teachings of the Great Prophet and pray for God to smite Satan and the Unbelievers. Only when the Earth is cleansed of evil Capitalists will it be made whole again.

All humans are fallen, bearing the Original Sin of exhaling CO2 in every breath they take. The whole duty of humans is to praise the Holy Name of Government, to give thanks for its Sufficiency and Strength, and to pay tithes and offerings to Government in hope of its Indulgence. Ask not what your Government can do for you, but what can you do for your Government.

You know what’s cool about the Green New Deal and it’s appeal to communists and socialists? With the old socialist systems, they killed people to improve their lives. That didn’t sit particularly well and certainly didn’t make much sense when people analyzed it. But this time, they can kill people not to improve the lives of people, but to save the planet. That makes more logical sense. So this time, piling up the bodies won’t matter so much.

Please stop writing about that ignorant c*nt. All you do is give her an air of legitimacy that she absolutely does not deserve. I have a 3 year old grandson that says ridiculously stupid shit. too. Are you going to write articles about him next?

Shapiro is 100% right when he says we can’t talk effectiveness and cost with socialists and statists. It will never work. Instead you need to argue morally with them. Their entire green new deal is immoral and ridiculous.

He’s wrong. I’m usually against making utilitarian arguments in favor of freedom, but in some cases such as this one it’s too easy to “agree to disagree” about morals and to sway others (dumb people) that your ideas are the good ones and the other ideas are the evil ones. To get around this, you have to (also) make the utilitarian argument that the plan proposed would not solve any problems and only create new ones.

No plan to build a world wide network to bring energy from windy and sunny places to those places that have neither. Sounds like Jacobson needs to go back to the drawing board. Such a grid would cost an awful lot of money, but it would mean that we needn’t build so many off shore wind turbines, and so on.

Until we have better battery storage, solar/wind are going to be insufficient because of what’s called the “California duck curve.”

Any plan that doesn’t include nuclear power as part of the path towards 0 carbon emissions should be totally disregarded. We already have the technology to achieve the goal, but the American public is too stupid to realize it. We don’t even need much in the way of new uranium to run new nuclear power plants – several new designs can run on old depleted uranium for decades.

If any of these fools gets real power and passes something requiring the use of nothing except wind & solar… they’ll get run out of office very quickly once the groccery stores can no longer stock their shelves because its impossible to sustain our current level of food production without some sort of dependable fuel (that only nuclear can provide if were mandating 0 carbon emissions).

China is already building these reactors. As much as I loathe China’s form of government and the atrocities that it commits, sometimes there are good things to not being accountable to the public – specifically when it comes to highly technical issues like climate change. We can’t trust average people to make rational decisions about this stuff – which causes democratic republics like USA to end up in a total deadlock oscillating between two completely absurd and stupid ideas (make everything wind/solar vs. do nothing at all).

The Green Manifesto (my title), a letter sent to Congress by over 600 environmental groups.

If I interpret this correctly, the Green New Deal is even more INSANE than The Federalist suggests.

Humans have used fire for about a quarter million years. However, the Climate Manifesto — endorsed by over 600 environmental groups — calls for the virtual abolition of fire: no fossil fuels, of course, but also no bio-fuels or fuels derived from waste.

Funny about Tony’s lack of knowledge and of progressives in general. All he (they) has to do is take the 10 Freeway east from Los Angeles to Palm Springs on any very windy day in the desert, which is usually 7 out of ten days, drive past what appears to be over a thousand windmills and ask himself why are only 3-7 of these thousand plus windmills turning. Oh thats right you have to be able to think to ask that question. But again what is to be expected from a progressive sycophant, other than brown nose their way into the hearts of their benefactors.

South of Soledad on 101, there’s a winery which advertises ‘SUSTAINABLE!’ (man, I’ve come to hate that word). It has one wind generator; the winery is NOT powered by that generator. If there is enough wind to provide power, there would not be *ONE* generator; there would be lots. That’s some BS on their part.

Its not about thinking. Its about saying the right things, hitting the talking points and feeling good about yourself. It has nothing to do with actually stemming environmental damage while also ensuring that we have the energy necessary and reliable enough to shelter, feed and keep ~8.5 billion humans alive.

“All he (they) has to do is take the 10 Freeway east from Los Angeles to Palm Springs on any very windy day in the desert, which is usually 7 out of ten days, drive past what appears to be over a thousand windmills and ask himself why are only 3-7 of these thousand plus windmills turning.”

Better yet, don’t drive anywhere and ask the operator of these windmills.

What’s the purpose of debating Article-X,Y and Z when ALL OF YOU can go PROVE your article theories at Home Depot for under $2K. If its so efficient and so easy to do WHATS THE FREAK-EN HOLD UP??!??!?!?!?!? Does the Government REALLY have to TELL you (by theft) how to spend your money before your capable enough as a person to GO DO IT?

I’ve done it. 1.6KW Wind mill and 800W Solar. I’ve tracked them both for 2-years and can tell you straight up. They cost AT LEAST $0.30/Kwh. Some places actually run that high of a price today BECAUSE government has already stuffed “Green” policy into law. DRIVING your electrical prices from $0.06/Kwh up 5 TIMES just to make Green energy alternatives look semi attractive.

That is the story… GREEN ENERGY drives up your power bill 5-TIMES the amount it could be. Don’t believe it?!?! GO DO IT – WHATS THE HOLD UP!

I actually lucked out since I live in an extremely conservative state. I should also add that $0.30/Kwh figure is a 30-year placement without any expense figure and that it doesn’t include ANY of the things that were “subsidized” already. Thus whatever subsidizing amount to those items would be ON TOP of that $0.30/Kwh figure.

Here’s were I’m at. Cost of each the Wind & Solar was within $50 of $800/piece from the cheapest sources I could find so $1800. The Windmill creates on average (over 2-years) 0.342 / day. The Solar creates on average 1.196 / day

Current investment to Kwh cost is at $4.86/Kwh Wind Energy and $2.49/Kwh Solar. (Of course the investment has more years ahead of it to bring those rates down).

Over 2-Years of the $1800 invested I’ve gotten $30.32 of energy produced at the same commercial rate of our power company ($0.06383/Kwh).

Thus; You can see they generate $0.098/day together making it take 18,367-Days (50 YEARS) to even get the investment of $1800 back with NO MORE COSTS. Like stated before if your current commercial rate is $0.30/Kwh the piss poor power price makes the investment not look so stupid.

And another one I see – (2)$800 to $1600 not $1800 so 44.7-Years on ROI.

And other details: Local wind average is 7MPH and 500 watt/m2(Winter) to 700 watt/m2(Summer).

From where I sit – Green Energy won’t be effective until a 100W solar panel costs $20(1/5th the current $100 price-tag with ALL other items needed included) or Current Rates are in excess of $0.30/Kwh. These assumptions all taking for granite there isn’t any hidden subsidy or environmental bills to the process of making them.

Maybe someday – but we’re not there yet and the only thing Government has done is waste Billions after Billions that do nothing but DRIVE up costs on consumers.

To be fair, your system is not the most efficient… And as far as placement may not be optimal either.

Having a bigger-ish home system, and being in the right spot can make all the difference. With subsidies in many areas one can be at or below the rates paid to their utility. In theory, one can hit those numbers without subsidies in some areas too.

Then there’s self installation and other silly stuff which an individual can argue makes their out of pocket cost lower, although they’re obviously still expending the energy a paid person would be, which SHOULD count for something.

But in some areas it is not THAT bad as is… But in other areas it is completely useless.

If we’re ever to go more green with power, which I imagine we will as the tech gets better, every area will have to play to what works there. Different places have different resources and no technology will suit every place.

“Most efficient” location… All of which “Green Laws” have absolutely 0-effect on. What I see in the effects of “Green Law” is a State-to-State per KWh increase in cost directly in connection with “Green Policy” and Tax-Payer funding.

I guess the point of all that information is – The government cannot make a “more efficient” location by FORCING inefficient means that jack up consumer prices and simultaneously making the collectively tax-payer funding make up for the losses IN the “Most efficient” locations.

For Example: I have a good friend who spent $60K on a huge solar setup, Tax-payers gave hims $27K of that purchase and FORCED “Green” had driven up his per Kwh charge already to $0.27/Kwh. To him it doesn’t look that bad with an ROI of 15-Years but there’s no attention given to the $27K subsidy and Jacked-Up high per Kwh cost due to “Green” energy already being forced by law.

Being located just 1-State away most of the terrain variables can be dismissed about the per Kwh price change. The biggest difference is that of a conservative state W/O Forced Green and a Liberal State with many Forced Green policies.

The subtitle says it all “Climate change is the excuse; radically remaking the American economy is the aim”. Except it is too narrow, it should have been “Climate change is the excuse; radically remaking the America n economy is the aim”. And by “remaking”, they mean turning it into North Venezuela.

A more chilling expression encapsulating the all-powerful state you’ll never hear. That’s been the creed of every murderous revolutionary, terrorist and dictator down through history, and Ocasio-Cortez is all three writ large.

The kids will fall for it because they’ve come out of the same education system that produced and indoctrinated her. It’s been a long while in the making, and the Old Guard like Bernie Sanders must be very proud of themselves. These are the monsters they’ve created; unconscionable, anti-intellectual, vicious, hateful destroyers of Western Civilisation. A couple of decades ago the Left in all its forms, discovered the golden key, the magic invocation: make the world green. Nothing can stop it. Upon that altar you can sacrifice anything. And they know it.

And it was all paid for by their victims-in-waiting. And what’s the substance of the rebuttal? Not a moral declaration of the Rights of Man or any such thing. No, just talk of how much fun it is to be “aspirational” but it’ll cost too much. Well, they’ve got you there, too; again: the revolution has no cost.

back of the envelope the federal government would need to increase federal tax expenditures from $4 trillion to around $11.73 trillion a year for 10 years.

$2.5 trillion extra a year for medicare for all. $.13 billion a year to replace all automobiles and trucks over 10 years. $1.5 trillion a year to replace airlines with nationwide highspeed rail and subways. $1.5 trillion a year to replace every coal, gas, and nuclear power plant with wind and solar and build enormous gravity and electric batteries and entire grid replacement with smart grid and new pathways from new energy generation locations. $.5 trillion a year to refurbish every building in america with state of the art energy saving technology. $.6 trillion a year to provide 20 million americans who don’t want to work with a living wage of $15 an hour 6.73 trillion total in new revenue

income tax revenue for the federal government was about 2.4 trillion in 2018. so essentially you’ll need to quadruple tax rates on every bracket to start to get close. the middle class has an effective tax rate of about 3% right now. I’d like to see them try it really.

Read an interesting piece that said if we wanted to replace conventional power with wind we would need to build and install the equivalent of all the wind power we have now EVERY YEAR for the next 50 years. Ain’t going to happen.

You know what’s insane is that some lunatic former barista who took government position for no reason says “We’ll get rid of fossil fuels and all those cars in 20 year” and 30-40% of the population think that’s either feasible or effective. That’s slightly less plausible than converting every single house in the US into some green energy compliant unicorn den.

Their economic plan – eliminating the billionaires and replacing them with billions of immigrants everywhere – will ensure the stability of the nation for years to come. Because immigrants work hard, and will create new tech businesses and stuff even though the flow of capital and investment will cease because nothing can be allowed to be millionaires and billionaires. And the government takes 70% of what you make!

On a certain level, I think the left eating their own is a necessary evil. The 1% is almost exclusively white, male, and progressive. When the mob comes after them, and you can TELL that they’re sharping their teeth, the people on top are gonna have to take a side.

“On a certain level, I think the left eating their own is a necessary evil. The 1% is almost exclusively white, male, and progressive. When the mob comes after them, and you can TELL that they’re sharping their teeth, the people on top are gonna have to take a side.”

That’s not gonna happen. The Left won’t eat their own. They’ll have a “conversation”, and they’ll advance the ball. Cortez frightens some of the natives, sure, but she represents the tens of millions of kids who have graduated the public school system in the last couple of decades. They are fully convinced and fully involved. This thing is a done deal. That it’s nuts doesn’t matter one jot. They might suspect they can’t fly but the mantra is, if we all really, really believe we can fly, and we all hold hands, and we all jump off the cliff together, we WILL fly.

“we all jump off the cliff together, we WILL fly” — Absolutely love this… Perfect phrase for the group-thinking mentality associated with every Left policy.. Associates well to Medicaid/Single-Payer claims that it will only work if we ALL are forced to jump together instead of giving substantial excuses of why it fails at the local level.

Thanks. It goes way back to the idea about education being the key, which is why the Marxists captured the education system so early on. And why “re-education “, voluntarily or forced, is a central theme of Progressive ideology.

They really do understand that all you have to do is instil the ideology and all else will follow. And it does, in the short term, and hence the tidal wave that is now forming. But in the long term, it really is like jumping off that cliff.

The leaders, the real power brokers, of course are smarter than that. They know it’s all bullshit.

It’s all gonna be fun and games for these idiots until they finally piss off the sane, intelligent, and non cucked people just a LITTLE too much to bear.

Then we’re going to have Pinochet V 2.0, and it’ll be one of the biggest bloodbaths in history. Modern leftists are NOT the hard edged sort of folks many leftists were in decades past. Baristas and soy boys simply aren’t going to be able to stand against the type of people that the right wing has in it.

Pinochet V 2.0 may not be my idea of a perfect world, but it will sure as hell beat Stalin V 2.0…

The sane and intelligent are a rare commodity, and they’re mostly resigned to it, sensing they’ll be long dead by the time Dystopia is proclaimed. The young are so indoctrinated they’ll march lockstep into the meat grinder. They already are. The future is here.

Great civilisations don’t go out with a bang or correct themselves enough to reverse the rot. Britain–once at least as powerful and culturally ubiquitous as the United States–went down quietly, paying off the plebs, crushing the middle class and folding them into the political system. That’s what’s currently happening in the US. Sure, it’ll have a different flavor about it, but once the regular folks become part of the hypocrisy and are tethered to the state seeking security over self-respect, it’s all over (it already is), and it’ll go on for generations.

I know a lot of types think a revolt or revolution will occur when people finally wake up, but that’s not the lesson of history. It’s not even the history of the United States.

The truth is, BOTH have happened. I don’t think the USA will ever become the great nation it once was, but we may have a “dead cat bounce.” Google the term if you don’t know the meaning. Many empires have had temporary turn arounds, and that is possible. I’m actually a millennial. Not all young people are morons, and Gen Z is trending more right wing on many issues than my generation. So nothing is set in stone just yet. All things are possible.

Although I think a slow death is probably most likely… It is not the only possible option.

Yeah, but a dead cat bounce is exactly what I’m talking about with regards the decline going on for generations. Doesn’t meant you don’t feel well from time to time, but that’s only a remission; the cancer’s still gonna kill you.

Rome went on for a couple of centuries, despite some near-fatal periods of real disorder and near anarchy, but her systems remained intact allowing for a continuation of something resembling what had gone before, but the death was a certainty. In fact it’s those bounces that allow the suffering to continue.

The West has had waves of retrenchment in its modern history, perhaps the 80s being the last true attempt to reverse the underlying trend, but even then it was superficial and doomed. Ironically, the fall of communism has simply given birth to the Third Way and its even more retarded cousin, the Green movement. There’s the perfect example of a levelling out, a dead cat bouncing, that in fact has allowed an even more insidious level of control and debauchery.

There are no “renewable energy sources” that are capable of meeting consumer demand and provide enough energy to build their replacement. The fact is that building the so-called “renewable energy sources” places more demand on conventional sources that use chemically stored solar energy.

Besides, the idea that there is a problem with CO2 is unfounded. During the day, the Sun heats Earth’s surface to temperatures much higher than the average near-surface temperature which heats the atmosphere. Heat is retained through the night by Earth’s massive atmosphere.

The atmospheric temperature between 1.25 and 2 meters above the surface (where the temperatures are measured) stays warmer than the average temperature of the atmosphere because of the adiabatic lapse rate. This is true even where the surface cools by radiation to much lower temperatures. Temperature influence by radiation from the atmosphere to the surface is an inflated myth.

There are no “renewable energy sources” that are capable of meeting consumer demand and provide enough energy to build their replacement. The fact is that building the so-called “renewable energy sources” places more demand on conventional sources that use chemically stored solar energy.

Nuclear power is the only source that can replace fossil fuels with our current level of technology, but of course that fact means the progressives can’t use it

If we weren’t so intent on preparing for war and messing up health care, we could almost afford it. The government will waste that much money by 3030 anyway with little or nothing to show for it, so I say go for it. At least replace the coal and oil generators. Hey, this is America. We can do it. We did TVA, Hoover Dam, Panama Canal, man to the moon, defeated the Axis and Japan. American youth need some hope.

If we weren’t so intent on preparing for war and messing up health care, we could almost afford it. The government will waste that much money by 3030 anyway with little or nothing to show for it, so I say go for it. At least replace the coal and oil generators. Hey, this is America. We can do it. We did TVA, Hoover Dam, Panama Canal, man to the moon, defeated the Axis and Japan. American youth need some hope.

This is the equivalent of saying replace oranges with apples when you need oranges because after all they are both fruit. Wind and solar convert kinetic energy, traditional generators convert potential energy.

The build rate and costs are one thing, but two of the main features of our grid are stability- a hard 60Hz frequency- and the ability to impact load. Renewables work off of our stable grid. They cannot create this stability without the “big iron” plants. Same with impact loading. Good bye steel mills, compressor stations, mining, etc that needs that big iron stability to just get up and running. These are massive motors. Think of the big iron as massive shock absorbers, replaced by a bunch of uncoordinated tiny rubber bands.

I always try to explain it to people with the following analogy:

The Boeing Dreamliner is powered by 2 jet engines, each capable of producing a 100MW of power. A lot of power. Precisely controlled by the pilots, they tell them when to speed up, produce more power, lower power, etc. Now, take those engines off and put on 100 windmills or even gas power propellor engines strapped to the plane. And, take away the ability of the pilots to control them. At times, you may get enough thrust acting at the same time in the same direction to move the plane along, god forbid it would have enough to actually take off, because disaster would await.

That is what plugging a bunch of renewables into the grid is doing. It is fine for supplemental. At any given time you can add it to the system and back off one of the primary movers. But it is not economical – you still have to have those other sources when the wind is not blowing or sun is not shining.

It won’t cost one darn penny. Whatever money is used or spent will be added to the national debt. Since there are no immediate consequences for overspending and creating more debt by the government, they will continue to pile it on. There will always be some fool who will buy government bonds trusting the government to make good on them in any event. Who knows at what point debt will matter? But when it finally does, that will be the end of the US as it was founded…we are already 3/4 of the way there.

Personally I think we’ll get there with some combo of renewable stuff eventually. But trying to rush it is where it makes no sense.

An analogy I like to use is what if the government had mandated every household had a computer… To be subsidized by the government… When a computer cost $500K and filled up a room. It just wouldn’t make sense. SURE a computer is good and useful and shit… But it needed to happen in its own time.

We might be able to crank out big ass solar panels for $2.99 someday that recoup their costs in 6 months… But we ain’t there yet. Maybe we’ll never get that cheap, but might get to being cheaper than coal, which solar already can be if deployed JUST right in perfect spots.

Any which way, letting it sort itself out is the only sane way to do it.

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